An Empire Requires Delicate Balancing
The Roman empire did not have the mechanism to collect revenue on its own, points out Adrian Goldsworthy in Pax Romana . It therefore outsourced that job to private individuals called the publicani . Not surprisingly, the publicani got rich by siphoning off some of the tax collected. Obviously, some publicani would loot without a thought for tomorrow. Given the wealth and thus power of these groups, it wasn’t easy for Rome to rein them in. Both the emperor and the Roman Senate were wary of taking them on. It was the eternal political problem: “Balancing the needs of the influential publicani and saving the provincials from penury demanded a ‘divine’ virtue.” While Rome demanded a certain amount of revenue from the provinces, the emperor and senate often demanded the provincial governors not loot too much. The aim was steady year-on-year revenue flow, as emperor Tiberius once angrily reminded a provincial governor. The aim was “to shear the sheep, not skin them”...